- Conor Commercial Real Estate, USAA Real Estate Acquire 36 Acres at Beltway 8, U.S. 90 for Industrial Park [Prime Property]
- Sunset Coffee Restoration Delayed, Now Set To Be Completed By May [Houston Chronicle]
- $367M Worth of Renovations and Upgrades Including New Sports Stadium Underway at Clear Creek ISD [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Land Owners Petition To Annex 6 Scattered Woodlands Properties That Remain Part of ExtraÂterritorial Jurisdiction [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Home Values Grew the Most Nationally with $36.4B Increase, According to Zillow [Houston Business Journal]
- Houston Named Top City for Modest Flips by Real Estate Site Redfin [Culturemap]
- 9 Ways To Make Houston Affordable Again [OffCite Blog]
- After It Closes Montrose Blvd. Location in April, El Tiempo 1308 Cantina To Take Over La Casa Del Caballo Space at 322 Westheimer [Food Chronicles; previously on Swamplot]
- Houston Continues Losing Streak for Citizen Lawsuits Over Pollution [Houston Public Media]
- Half the Oyster Beds in Galveston Bay Leased to a Seafood Company in Controversial, 23,000-Acre Deal [MyFoxHouston]
Photo of the Texas Medical Center: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
So the township of The Woodlands wants to annex properties that don’t fall under it’s de-annexation agreement with the city of Houston to give it control over the quality of development and be able to provide services easily to those areas when they are developed.
The Woodlands has until 2057 to make up its mind about annexation, as long as it pays 1/16 of 1 percent of sales taxes to Houston. It could incorporate now, but property taxes would be estimated to rise up to 70%. If their property taxes would rise so much, sounds like their quality of life is being subsidized by others. Some people complain about “their” tax dollars providing assistance to those who are struggling, but the median household income in The Woodlands in 2000 was $85,000. “According to a 2007 estimate, the median income for a household had risen to $94,626, for a family to $113,243” – from Wikipedia.
Sounds like The Woodlands need to sh*t or get off the pot, as my dad would have said.
Re: 1308
I recently met someone who just moved here from San Francisco, and they commented about how the Houston restaurant market seems “just as cannibalistic” as it is there. Read Swamplot for 6 months and you will see the entire circle of life as restaurants come and go, and reincarnate as improved or bastardized versions of themselves in other parts of town. Fascinating stuff.
The 70% jump would not apply to whole tax amount (county, school district, college, etc.), only the Woodlands tax, so in reality taxes would only rise by 5% or so.
I don’t think The Woodlands can incorporate at will. Or it would have already.
Somewhere along the way, I read that Texas has a plan, a statute regarding the formation of urban areas.
Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Houston have something like “dibs” on population of central TX.
Anyone know anything about this?
I expect it was designed specifically to keep planned communities from siphoning off tax dollars from adjacent municipalities.
There is certainly plenty of property tax income today to run The Woodlands independently. Maybe the political resistance is to the fiscal discipline that would be required – – or the Huges Development company is not quite ready to give-up free rein..